One of the first things you learn when you get involved in politics is that even ideologues don't really believe what they say. For example, leftists don't actually care about homosexual rights, feminism, the environment, or workers. They will gladly throw all those causes aside if it means screwing over white people.

Unfortunately, many self-described "fiscal conservatives" operate the same way. They don't actually care about slashing the size of the government or even saving money, they just want to take out the populist, nationalist elements of the Right. And you can tell not just by what they say, but by what they don't say.

Immigrant-headed households use 41 percent more federal welfare benefits than their native-born counterparts, according to a new Center for Immigration Studies analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data...

The analysis dovetails off an earlier CIS study which found that 51 percent of immigrant-headed households use at least one welfare program, compared to 30 percent of native-headed households.

“The greater consumption of welfare dollars by immigrants can be explained in large part by their lower level of education and larger number of children compared to natives,” Richwine writes in Monday’s report. “Over 24 percent of immigrant households are headed by a high school dropout, compared to just 8 percent of native households. In addition, 13 percent of immigrant households have three or more children, vs. just 6 percent of native households.”

Richwine’s study further reveals that legal immigrant households tend to use more welfare benefits on average — $6,378 — than illegal immigrant households $5,692, whose welfare benefits are largely accepted on behalf of U.S.-born children.

The study also found the region of origin of these immigrants strongly correlated with welfare use. As you've probably guessed, households from Central America and Mexico use more welfare than anyone else. Immigrants from Europe and South Asia actually use less than native households.

Electoral politics is about who, not what. But so is policy. If you are trying to control government spending but you simply will not acknowledge certain objective realities, you will fail. If "fiscal conservatives" actually want to limit government spending, they need to look at who is actually using these kinds of resources and take action to try to stop it.

But they won't. Far easier to whine about Donald Trump and try to get positive press in the left-wing media.